By Callum Ludwig
A pair of friends and artists have partnered up for this month’s exhibition at YAVA; ‘Vessels and Visions.’
Ceramist Ted Secombe and painter David Miller have brought their art forms together, using each other’s work along the way as a reference point at times.
Mr Miller said Mr Secombe visited his studio while his paintings were in progress, while he painted ‘Ted’s Kiln’ while Mr Secombe worked on pieces.
“He saw the colours so he could try to work the colours into his pots, but you can see similar movements in the paintings and the surfaces of the pots as well,” he said.
“It’s great here in the gallery because you can get a good visual on the pieces from a distance and up close and that’s important in all these works as they tell a story up close and they tell a different story being removed from some distance.”
Both men have a different origin from which they found their art form; Mr Secombe began his career as a biochemist and found his way into ceramics by teaching himself while Mr Miller has worked in graphic design and children’s book publishing and continued his creative streak in his landscape paintings.
Mr Secombe said seeing Mr Miller’s work gave him a smorgasbord of ways to express himself because he had all of the designs stuck in his head.
“When you look at David and I, we’re not boys anymore, we’ve worked a long time in the artistic field, so it’s nice being stretched a bit and that’s what working with him has done, that’ll feed strongly into what comes out of my workshop,” he said.
“It is an expanded story from both of us because the works work together, but they work individually as well.”
Vessels and Visions will be on display in the YAVA Gallery until Sunday 13 August from Wednesdays to Sundays 10am to 4pm.
Mr Miller said it is a rare thing in visual arts to get to work with someone.
“It’s really good, I often envy musicians being able to work together in a band and reflect off each other and bounce ideas. Visual artists don’t often do that, so it’s been really good to be able to do that,” he said.
“I’d encourage other artists to try it, they might learn something or they might just enjoy getting to experience working with another artist.”
